Kirsten Dunst Moving From Melancholia To Red Light Winter

She’s earning some of the finest reviews of her career for playing depressed bride Justine in Lars von Trier’s world-ending Melancholia, so now Kirsten Dunst’s ready to parlay some of that goodwill into another prestigious indie project: an adaptation of Adam Rapp’s dark stage play Red Light Winter with co-stars Mark Ruffalo and Billy Crudup.

IndieWire’s Anne Thompson, who reports the news, says that Dunst will begin filming Red Light Winter in January, once she wraps her part alongside Isla Fisher in the equally-indie black comedy >Bachelorette. Rapp’s play centers around male friends coping with moving into the thirties, and the arrival of Christina, a French prostitute who upsets the guys’ precarious relationship. In their 2006 review of Rapp’s work, the New York Times called it “a frank, graphic story of erotic fixation and the havoc it can wreak on sensitive souls.” Thompson doesn’t confirm that Dunst will play Christina, though that appears likely.

Dunst, surprisingly, is carving her niche in the indie community at this moment. She earned an award at the Cannes Film Festival for her Melancholia turn – weathering bad press from Von Trier’s controversial Nazi comments – and is generating mild Oscar buzz (in a crowded Best Actress field). This is a distinct reversal from the beating Dunst took from fanboys during the Spider-Man 3 days, when the actress also appeared in poorly-received fare such as Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown and the dreadful How to Lose Friends & Alienate People alongside Simon Pegg. It’s a career revival, and one that seems content to linger in indie-land, at least for the time being.